Advice to newcomer: "Know every item that's in your bill. Be prepared to hold a colloquy on
six trees in South Dakota. For everyone else on the floor, they are interested in just one thing.
You have to know them all."

"Timing is everything. [House Speaker Sam] Rayburn [D-TX] was a master of timing. There
used to be a saying in my state that some people would never learn. They never developed a
sensitivity to the mood of the House. That's why we only have two hours of general debate.
Two hours is enough time for everyone to get it out of his system. More than that, people begin
to get edgy, they want to go home, and the fur will begin to fly." "I always check with the
leadership to make sure all the things are arranged, that if whip calls are needed, they'll be
ready."

"The greatest problem is a controversial item that can't be easily explained, one that looks like a
luxury item or a frill--like arts and humanities." "I talk to everyone, get every point of view and
give everyone the fairest possible consideration." "To a mid-westerner, arts and humanities
doesn't mean anything. But to the east side and west side, it's important." (She told Senator
Claiborne Pell, D-RI, to hold up on the authorization bill so they could say "not authorized yet" if
someone objected. "That took the steam out of the boys"--then the Senate put it in, they agreed
in conference.

"When the conference reports come back, I control all the time. And I'm not going to give H. R.
Gross [R-IA] forty minutes. It's just like any other day" (smiling). "I'm a great believer in
figures. I learned a long time ago that if you have the votes, you don't need to speak. And if you
don't have the votes, you can talk all day, and nothing will help you. The longer you talk, the
more trouble you are in."

Story regarding Robert L. F. Sikes (D-FL) and Sam M. Gibbons (D-FL): Gibbons proposes an
amendment regarding poor people. Hansen tells Sikes that if he wants his fish hatchery he had
better stop Gibbons. "I told him if he didn't help I couldn't hold off attacks on his fish laboratory.
And I said I'll take a very dismal view of appropriations for Florida in the future. I didn't want
any teapot tempest on the floor."

Story regarding clerk: "It's no secret that some clerks in the subcommittee run the committee. I
told him, you had better run for Congress. And if I'm so stupid I can't understand it, I don't
belong in Congress. That's settled."

Story regarding Arnold Olsen (D-MT), Hansen's competition for a seat on Appropriations.

Hansen: "Cannon began to think about it and began to waver. He shivered a little."

Hansen to Cannon (by emissary): "You wouldn't want your opposition to women and your letter
to me to appear in the press, would you? I won't take any chances."

Hansen to Olsen: "If you want to run versus me on the basis of knowledge, experience, and what
votes we can get, fine. But if you are going to run versus me on grounds that I'm a woman, I'll
go out to Montana where I often go to make speeches to Democratic women, and I'll cut you to
pieces out there."

Hansen: "The next day he came to me and said he was dropping out, that he didn't want to run
versus a woman. I said, 'that's not all there is to it, is it Arnold? You don't have the
votes.'"

"Education and Labor is a philosophical committee. You have great debates on great
issues."

"More pressure member-to-member on Appropriations than on other committees."

"The member-to-member pressure is much greater on Appropriations than on the authorizing
committee. Authorizing legislation is more technical and only a few people get interested in it.
But when you get to the money, every member is interested."

"[Appropriations Chairman] George (Mahon) [D-TX] said to me, 'Julia, you're putting too much
in the bill. You've got to take some out.' So I said to him, 'George, I represent all the states west
of the Dakotas, and that's a pretty big piece of real estate.' He said, 'Yes, but you've got to cut the
bill.' So I said, 'George, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll change places with you. If you take over
my committee, I'll go on the Defense Subcommittee, and we'll see what you can cut there.' He
said, 'Well, well, I guess not.' But I went home and thought it over and worked like fury to take
some money out of the bill, and I found five projects I could cut. So I went back to him the next
day and told him. One of them was Guadeloupe, Texas. George wasn't listening when I said
that, but a newspaper man was sitting in the corner. He heard it and put it in the paper. The next
day, George said, 'What do you mean cutting this project?' and I said, 'I told you I was going to
do it.' I said, 'One man is going to get one point four million dollars, and I think that's too much.'
He said that he agreed. He's very fair. He's courteous and gentlemanly, and much more
considerate of the wishes of others than Mr. Cannon. Sometimes I wish he'd look a little harder
at his defense budget. . . ." Then a long, long discussion of how much we spend on defense, war,
liquor, drugs, hardware compared to interior and how she got all these figures for life on
floor.

"It's common sense that when you get the chance, you go to a higher committee in the House. In
my state legislature, I was chairman of Education. Then later, I had a chance to move up to
Highways, and I did. I could run the education program of the state through the highway
program. There was that much power. The same in Congress. The authorizing committee on
the interior was fine and good, but it didn't have the power. If you can't get the funds, you won't
get the project. It's just common sense."

"I don't try to live in a woman's world. I live in a man's world, and I operate that way. A woman
has to work twice as hard as a man to get accepted. You can't be an incompetent woman. If you
are, the men will laugh you down the drain. . . . I'm the first woman to be chairman of an
Appropriations subcommittee. I'm sure George Mahon asked everyone around if they thought I'd
be a good chairman. But if you'll notice, I have less trouble with my bills than most of the
others."

Administration? No generalization. "They leave Appropriations alone."

Clientele groups: More active on Appropriations than Interior. She spoke of the pressure on
Indiana dunes and Piscataway as very great. Pulled some stunt regarding authorization here, too.
Kept it out of the appropriations bill, and let the Senate put it in.

Appropriations less partisan then. "But partisanship has mounted in the last two years. They
have been hard years for Appropriations with the fiscal situation so difficult."

But she points out all the time that she had twenty-two years in Washington's legislature--that
she's experienced, not stupid, et cetera.

Not very good comparing Interior and Education and Labor. I gave up. It was too long ago, and
the Interior Subcommittee is so immediate.

Michael J. Kirwan (D-OH) asked for her on the Interior Subcommittee. She knew him before,
and they had some (unnamed) mutual friend who was very influential.

On Land and Water Conservation Fund--back door financing. "George came to me and said I
was hurting the Appropriations Committee by supporting the financing, that their members could
go out and buy anything. I told him that the escalation of land prices was a scandal, and that if
we didn't move as quickly as possible, it would be worse. I also said we couldn't defeat the bill
anyway, and that our best chance was to make a clear record. If you can't lick 'em, I said, join
'em, and get the best you can."